Yardley Slicker Lipstick – THE Mod Swinging Londoners MUST HAVE!

Submitted by belindaesq June 6th, 2010
Certifikitsch Winner

Once upon a time my mother, a bleach blond divorcee with a half breed kid, was dating a millionaire from San Marino. She was a teacher and on a budget, so her makeup was from the drug store and not a high end department store. She snagged the guy and I snagged the lipstick. Drugstore or not, Yardley was the coolest makeup available in the 1960s. Their Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy ads were so hip they were the basis of my generation’s aesthetic!!! I have 8 of these gems and as you can see, they are still wearable today.

8 Responses to “Yardley Slicker Lipstick – THE Mod Swinging Londoners MUST HAVE!”

  1. Allee Willis

    I love the story of how the lipsticks came into your possession but I love even more the fact that you’ve placed them in a fountain for Buddha to contemplate.

    The shades of the ones that are open are killing me because in my college years and ensuing young adulthood those slicker colors coated my lips like asphalt. The Yardley ads where the height of Mod fabulousness and they’re imprinted on my brain as thick as the lipstick once paved my smacker. Fantastic collection!

  2. denny

    Amazing post for sure! I clearly remember every woman in my family pulling out these tubes at party’s, trips to the mall, etc, they never left home without their lipstick. Like Joan Crawford says in “Sudden Fear” – “why I can’t let you see me without my lipstick on, I feel positively naked without it”.

  3. belindaesq

    So another fab story is how I got the 16mm film of the Jean Shrimpton Slicker ad. I did est in the early 1980s and it was a 2 weekend course with a week in between. After the first weekend the trainer told us something like, “You are in New York City. Anything is possible and we want to hear some great stories when you come back next weekend.” So I took on finding the Yardley Slicker ad. I thought, “This is the ad capitol of the world, that film is here someplace.” I was DETERMINED to get my hands on that film. So I started calling around different ad agencies. I didn’t have a clue who the director was or what agency did it. Doors were slammed over and over but I thought that I would get my hands on that film if I had to fly to London and blow some old ad man. So I was walking around on the upper east side that week and walked by an office that said CLIO. I thought that the CLIOs has something to do with ads so I went in. An hour later I walked out with the 16mm film of the Yardley Slicker ad in my hands. I KNEW I was the GOD of my universe and could do ANYTHING. A good lesson to learn at a young age and I didn’t have to blow anyone to get that film. The bad part of the story was, I gave it to some guy at my school who was the video DJ for Danceteria. I wish I would have kept it so I could have given it to YOU!

    • Allee Willis

      Yeah, much better here than in the bottom of a box that’s hopefully still stored in the video DJ’s closet somewhere. Well, kudos to you for being a pitbull in tracking the footage down. A valuable asset in a lawyer. Now what else do you collect?

  5. belindaesq

    I would never sell these. They mean too much to me. I also collect fabulous people, but most of them are in LA and New York. I wish I had more down here in Carlsbad, CA.